10 February 8 - 14, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents could’ve been the delta-9. Four people told us if we wanted to trip, look no further: the magic mushroom gum- mies by TRE House had us covered. There’s no doubt about it. They will make you trip. The packaging for these products comes with recommended doses: 1–3 for a day at the office, 4–6 for a day at the party and 7+ for a day on the moon. After doing a decent amount of research into these little guys, we felt comfortable starting out with three gum- mies. The effects were mild, but good. It gave us a solid head high, but at times it was hard to distinguish what we were feeling, the gum- mies or the high-inducing THCa flower we had been smoking. We mostly sat around and played video games for the roughly three hours that we felt the gummies’ effects. Over- all, we had a fine time on three gummies, but it still didn’t feel like a trip. Normally, we’d like to inch our way to- ward higher doses when experimenting with stuff like this, but there was no time. We had a deadline. So, we waited about a week for our tolerance to go down before our next session with the TRE House magic mushroom gummies. It was go big or go home this time, seven gummies total. We steered clear of the THCa flower on the come up so there was no confusion about what we were feeling. The gummies were sent down our gullet at around 2:30 p.m. With every gummy we swallowed we wondered if this was a good idea, but there was no turning back. We figured we’d play some virtual reality video games until the gummies kicked in, so we donned our VR headset and loaded into Asgard’s Wrath 2. We got some good fights in and progressed through the campaign a bit, but it became increasingly overwhelm- ing. We had to get out of there. Around 2:56 p.m., we started to sweat more than usual. “It’s about 3 p.m. Feeling a tiny bit nau- seous,” we wrote in our reporter’s notebook. “Might check back in in half an hour or so.” Our next entry read, “JK. It’s only been about 15 minutes. I’m definitely feeling the gummies now.” We started to feel tired, but there was no way we could sleep. Our pupils were huge. More and more, we were being filled with a strong feeling of euphoria and anxiety. We felt heavier and giggly. Then, the visuals be- gan to kick in. Out of the corner of our eye, ev- erything seemed to be moving. Colors were brighter, shadows were darker, and sounds seemed to reverberate around the room for longer. It became increasingly difficult to fo- cus on anything. When 3:22 p.m. rolled around, it was time for a bowl of THCa flower. That kicked our trip into high gear. “It’s about 3:36 p.m. now and I’m feeling the gummies pretty strongly,” I wrote. “I feel like I need to lay down and close my eyes.” When I closed my eyes, I saw red, neon outlined pyramids, as if from some Egyptian sci-fi horror flick. By this time, I was spending a lot of the trip convincing myself that I wasn’t going to die, that everything was OK. At times, it felt like a mix between acid and mescaline. “It’s about 4:20 p.m. right now, but I don’t think I could 420 right now,” I wrote in my notebook. I tried listening to music but could only make it through two songs before that too became too overwhelming. Are you catching the theme here? If we could sum up our trip in one word it would probably be “overwhelming.” But, we don’t blame the gummies for that. We think we may have just taken too much for our liking. We started to come down around 5 p.m., and the trip slowly faded away over the next hour or so. Well, what the hell did we just take? The packaging doesn’t give much information, but it does say each gummy has about 22.5 milligrams of a “proprietary nootropic mush- room blend.” The company website refers to it as a proprietary liposomal blend. There’s no amanita in these bad boys. On TRE House’s website, it says that liposomal blend includes: 5-HTP (a.k.a. 5-hydroxytryptophan), rhodi- ola rosea, lion’s mane, mimosa hostilis root, phenylethylamine hydrochloride, cyanoco- balamin (B12) and cholecalciferol (D3). Mimosa hostilis root has a powerful psy- chedelic in it called DMT. Some Redditors seem to believe that this is what’s causing the trip in TRE House’s gummies. Others have suggested that the gummies have the hallucinogen 4 ACO DMT in them. How- ever, lab reports provided on the company’s website show no detectable presence of DMT or 4 ACO DMT in the gummies. So, how do these gummies work exactly? We couldn’t get in touch with the company, and there isn’t much information about this on their website. However, one of the people who recom- mended the TRE House gummies to us was Sallie Baxter, the owner of a local yoga studio called Balanced Being. The yoga studio sells these gummies, and Baxter said a company rep gave her a fact sheet for them. Here’s how they break things down in that fact sheet. The company says it’s come up with a “proprietary blend of liposomes and noot- ropics that activate the same receptors in the brain as traditional psychedelic mushrooms.” “The issue is, that in their normal state, the body is unable to process enough of these ingredients all at once and expect that they are able to hit the receptor site all at once which would trigger the optimal effect,” the company says. “This is why the ingredients are first made into a smaller, evenly homoge- nized particle size to in a sense trick the body into feeling like you are consuming much more than you actually are and that all ingre- dients hit the receptor site at the same time, triggering a highly bioavailable and effica- cious blend of all ingredients all at once, yielding an intensely euphoric effect.” We have a love-hate relationship with psy- chedelics. Most trips we’ve had have been cou- pled with fears of death. Those fears mostly come from the idea that we’re unsure of what we’re putting in our bodies and how it might affect us. Was that real acid we just took? Are we sure these are the right mushrooms? Did we take too much? We’ve survived all of our trips, but the fear is always there. That same fear was there on the TRE House gummies. We knew all of the ingredients going into our trip, but how they react together and how safe they are is be- yond us. The experience has made us a little apprehensive about trying just any reportedly psychedelic product out there. But, hey, trips are out on store shelves now if you want to experience one for yourself. Just start small. Unfair Park from p8 FREE EVERY DAY Images (details): Frederic Remington (1861–1909), A Dash for the Timber, 1889, oil on canvas, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Amon G. Carter Collection, 1961.381; Arthur Dove (1880–1946), The Lobster, 1908, oil on canvas, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Acquisition in memory of Anne Burnett Tandy, Trustee, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 1968–1980, 1980.29
